It seems like you still do not understand, despite the explanations and you are mis-characterizing my definition of work. You also seem to think that I'm siding with employers here. In fact it is the opposite.
My "definition" of "Work" in an employer-employee relationship: Time my employer pays me for in which I perform something we agreed upon.
Thus my commute was never work time. And because it was never work time, if I no longer commute to the office, they can't expect me to now work during the time frame that I used to commute. They can only expect me to work during the times of the commute that I actually worked. It's part of the (say that was the arrangement) 8 hours of work I did for them.
Unless of course I was fortunate enough to have that last arrangement I mentioned, where yes, working on the commute was paid for. Take the 1.5 train commute again. Let's say 30 minutes of that was getting to the train station on time, waiting for the train to arrive and walking to work and thus of that I was able to work for one hour, because I was lucky enough to work for an employer where they do pay me for work regardless of where I am even in the "office times".
Most people are not in that category. In fact, a lot of people do not even know how many hours they really put in. I can only recommend, if you don't track your hours, do so. Tracking hours is good for employees and bad for employers. Look at what your pay stub says, how many nominal hours you are working. That is your target. Try to stay close to that.
EDIT: Forgot about the conferences and such. Of course the employer has to pay for that. It's work time. By only the nominal hours. If they make me represent them at some conference for 12 hours that's fine, I'll do that for that weekend or whatever, but I plunk down 12 hours in my "timesheet" and I don't work for a day or so the week after or some other time that I choose and I damn well expect hotel, transportation and food to be paid for.
My "definition" of "Work" in an employer-employee relationship: Time my employer pays me for in which I perform something we agreed upon.
Thus my commute was never work time. And because it was never work time, if I no longer commute to the office, they can't expect me to now work during the time frame that I used to commute. They can only expect me to work during the times of the commute that I actually worked. It's part of the (say that was the arrangement) 8 hours of work I did for them.
Unless of course I was fortunate enough to have that last arrangement I mentioned, where yes, working on the commute was paid for. Take the 1.5 train commute again. Let's say 30 minutes of that was getting to the train station on time, waiting for the train to arrive and walking to work and thus of that I was able to work for one hour, because I was lucky enough to work for an employer where they do pay me for work regardless of where I am even in the "office times".
Most people are not in that category. In fact, a lot of people do not even know how many hours they really put in. I can only recommend, if you don't track your hours, do so. Tracking hours is good for employees and bad for employers. Look at what your pay stub says, how many nominal hours you are working. That is your target. Try to stay close to that.
EDIT: Forgot about the conferences and such. Of course the employer has to pay for that. It's work time. By only the nominal hours. If they make me represent them at some conference for 12 hours that's fine, I'll do that for that weekend or whatever, but I plunk down 12 hours in my "timesheet" and I don't work for a day or so the week after or some other time that I choose and I damn well expect hotel, transportation and food to be paid for.